Our civilization is locked in the grip of an ideology - CORPORATISM.
An ideology that denies and undermines the legitimacy of individuals as the citizen in a democracy.
The particular imbalance of this ideology leads to a
worship of self-interest and a denial of the public good.
The practical effects on the individual are passivity and conformism in the areas that matter, and non-conformism in the areas that don't.
John Ralston Saul

Richard Gage, AIA has been a practicing San Francisco Bay Area architect for more than 20 years, and is a registered member of the American Institute of Architects. Most recently he worked on a $400M mixed-use facility in Las Vegas NV. But he is also the founder and CEO of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, now numbering over 800 A/E’s, calling for a new investigation into the destruction of all 3 WTC high-rises on 9/11. Gage has spoken at over 100 events, reaching 20 U.S. states and 8 countries. He has been invited to present in 14 cities Australia, New Zealand, and Japan before the end of this year. As the anniversary of the events approaches, Gage tells WAN why he thinks there are hidden depths to the destruction of the World Trade Centre...

In all likelihood, you are unaware of the most important facts involving the destructions of the World Trade Center buildings. Nearly all the mainstream information sources and government officials have kept crucial information hidden from the public. This brief article will provide a clear explanation as to what actually happened to the Twin Towers and Building 7 (WTC 7) on September 11, 2001.

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) is a non-partisan, non-profit organization now numbering over 800 technical professionals and thousands of other supporters dedicated to exposing the facts that point to the explosive destruction of all three World Trade Center (WTC) high-rises.

We are calling for a new independent investigation empowered to subpoena and question witnesses under oath. Well-documented facts prove the WTC high-rises were destroyed by explosives. The implications are grave, but we ask that you look at the facts. AE911Truth is also concerned that evidence has been distorted and covered up by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the federal agency assigned to investigate the building collapses.

World Trade Center – Building 7

47-storey WTC 7 before destruction

WTC 7 was a 47-story steel-framed high-rise 100 yards from the North Tower. Even though no airplane hit it, it collapsed rapidly and totally on 9/11, in the manner of a controlled demolition. Despite its suspicious collapse, the 9/11 Commission report does not even mention WTC 7. NIST left its analysis of the WTC 7 collapse until 2008, seven years after the events, long after all the rubble was destroyed. NIST claims WTC 7 collapsed due to “normal office fires” which created a “new phenomenon” in high-rise catastrophes: collapse caused by thermal expansion of beams. NIST claims this caused the failure of a single column – the rest just followed.

Free-fall acceleration through 40,000 tons of structural steel?

NIST Forced to Acknowledge Free-Fall of WTC 7

In August 2008, NIST released the draft of its final report on Building 7. In that draft NIST claims that the building took 40% longer than "free-fall time" to collapse the first 18 stories. In a technical briefing that followed the release of the draft report Shyam Sunder, NIST’s lead investigator, denied that free-fall had occurred and stated that free-fall was incompatible with their analysis. He

said, “… a free fall time would be an object that has no … structural components below it...And that is not at all unusual because there was [emphasis in original] structural resistance that was provided in this particular case. And you had … a sequence of structural failures that had to take place and everything was not instantaneous.”

However, one of this article’s co-authors, David Chandler, used video analysis to show conclusively that for 2.5 seconds (about 100 feet) WTC 7 was in complete free-fall. He publicly challenged NIST’s claims at the technical briefing and he, along with others, filed formal requests for corrections.

NIST were forced to reverse themselves in their Final Report and acknowledged 2.25 seconds of absolute free-fall. Yet they did not reconsider how this was compatible with their analysis. A network of heavy steel girders had to be forcibly removed suddenly across the width of the building for eight floors. However, a free-falling object cannot exert force on anything in its path without slowing its own fall, so the structural support had to be removed by something else—explosives. The free-fall of Building 7 is a smoking gun.

World Trade Center – Commonalities in all Three Building Destructions

Complete Destruction Through the Path of Greatest Resistance

NIST claims that the Twin Towers collapsed due to the plane impacts and fire, and that WTC 7 collapsed due to fire alone. However, note that the Twin Towers survived the plane impacts and the jet fuel burned off in the first 10 minutes. Beyond that, all we have are not very large office fires. Over 100 steel framed buildings have suffered major fires, many much worse, yet none have collapsed. All three buildings on 9/11 fell through what should have been the path of greatest resistance – thousands of tons of steel – resulting in total dismemberment. This would require precisely timed removal of critical columns, which office fires cannot accomplish. Furthermore, a small falling top section would destroy itself before it could destroy a larger, stronger, undamaged lower section of the building. The impossible collapse is a smoking gun.

Molten Iron

The temperatures of the fires present a problem for NIST's claim that fire alone was involved. The melting point of steel is about 2800° F. According to NIST's own documents, hydrocarbon fires (e.g., jet fuel and office furnishings) generate temperatures only up to about 2,000° F under ideal conditions. NIST recognizes these fires could not melt steel, so they had to postulate elaborate mechanisms that might trigger collapse due to weakened columns and sagging girders.

Yet there is widespread evidence of molten iron in the rubble piles. Photos and numerous witnesses -- including fire fighters, cleanup crews, and structural engineers -- confirm the existence of several tons of molten metal under the debris. Some fire fighters described molten steel flowing like lava. Photos clearly reveal molten metal dripping as material is being lifted by excavation equipment.

Office fires are not hot enough to create the molten metal seen by dozens of witness

A video of the South Tower shows molten metal pouring out, glowing a radiant orange-yellow. Some have claimed this is molten aluminum, which melts at a lower temperature, but molten aluminum would be silvery in these conditions. This is molten iron or steel.

Jet fuel and office fires can’t create molten iron

At least three independent laboratory analyses of the dust that blanketed Lower Manhattan after the destruction of the Twin Towers reveal the presence of iron-rich “microspheres.” These spheres are formed when molten iron is sprayed into the air and forms droplets that cool before hitting the ground. The iron droplets indicate temperatures during the collapses much higher than hydrocarbon fires, in an explosive environment that could spray many tons of these

droplets into the air.

Billions of previously molten iron spheres found in all WTC dust samples

In April 2002, the RJ Lee Company was hired to investigate environmental contaminants in the Deutsche Bank, across the street from the World Trade Center. It reports, “Many of the materials, such as lead, cadmium, mercury and various organic compounds, vaporized and then condensed during the WTC Event.” The problem here is that lead vaporizes at 3200° F, some 1200° F hotter than is possible in hydrocarbon fires. A study of the WTC dust by the USGS for the EPA observed molybdenum-rich spheres that can form only above 4750° F. The high temperatures are another smoking gun.

Unignited Nano-Thermite in the WTC Dust

NIST did not even look for physical evidence of explosives. In fact NIST did not look at the physical evidence at all, apart from a few selected samples of the steel. The rest was destroyed. However, physical evidence did remain: the dust. NIST did not look at the dust, but independent investigators did. They discovered, along with the microspheres, tiny red-grey chips. They examined samples of WTC dust from different parts of Manhattan. All contained the red-gray chips. They found that the red layer consisted of unignited nano-thermite. Ordinary thermite is an incendiary: it can burn through heavy steel in seconds. The tiny particles in nano-thermite (1/1000 the thickness of a human hair) causes a much faster reaction so it can be used as a high explosive. The discovery of nano-thermite in the WTC dust was published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal in April 2009.

Hundreds of Red/Grey chips of “Unignited thermite” in every WTC Dust sample

Nano-thermite particle sizes are 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. This material is not made in a cave in Afghanistan.

These scientists found not just a smoking gun, but a loaded gun.

Independent lines of evidence prove the official government claims are impossible. We see our role at AE911Truth as exposing the evidence official agencies and the corporate media are covering up. Following up on the implications is the responsibility of every citizen. Every citizen must face his or her own conscience when confronting these difficult facts -- especially when we consider that 9/11 is the foundation for two wars, the launching of an endless "war on terror," and the loss of our freedoms due to legislation pushed through amid the fog of war.

Following Up on the Evidence

Here are some starting points for action:

a) Send the AE911Truth.org link to your personal mailing list and every architect and engineer that you can find.b) Sign the petition and demand a new, independent investigation. Volunteer. Become a sustaining donor.c) Write your local news media and representatives. Tell them to address the evidence. Send them the DVD, “9/11: Blueprint for Truth.”

A video of initiation of explosive destruction is here for WTC 1 (North Tower) and here for WTC 2 (South Tower).

The government maintains that the Twin Towers were each hit by aircraft and the subsequent fires weakened the steel in the upper stories, initiating a gravity-driven "pancake collapse," as illustrated in Figure 30. There are many problems with this hypothesis. The most obvious problem with it is the near free-fall speed of the destruction of these buildings (see Billiard Balls). A second problem is the paucity of remaining material. Where are the concrete floors? Where is the office furniture? Where is the office machinery? Where are the filing cabinets? Where is the wall board? Where are the bookcases? They were not there, so most of it appears to have turned to dust, as illustrated in Figure 31.

Figure 30.An illustration of what a "pancake collapse" would look like. The rubble pile should be at least 1/8 of the original building height (12.5%).Source

Figure 31. An illustration of what the actual destruction looked like. The rubble pile was no more than 2% of the original building height. Both towers went "poof."Source

Figure 32. Mostly unburned paper mixes with the top half of the Twin Towers. As seen a block away, a large portion of the towers remains suspended in air. This dust looks deeper than one inch. Most of the curb looks filled in.

Figure 33. The remains of WTC2 are in the foreground. Immediately behind WTC2 is where WTC3 (Marriott Hotel) once stood. Where did it go? In the background (upper-left) the World Financial Center (WFC) buildings have blown-out windows and other damage. The remains of WTC6, an 8-story building, towers over the remains of WTC1.

Figure 34. Building turns to dust.

Figure 35. Steel beams appear to disintegrate into steel dust.

Figure 40(a) (same as Figure 28). The tower is being peeled downward. Dark explosions shoot up, while white ones explode outward. Above the white explosions the building has vanished while the lower part awaits termination.

Figure 40(b). The building appears to be dissolving into powder. We don't we see any solid parts of a falling building, here.

Figure 313. Most of WTC3 disappeared during the destruction of WTC1. The pedestrian walkway over the West Side Highway was connected to something that is no longer there. The remains of WTC2 can be seen near the center of the photo and the remains of WTC1 are partly visible in the lower right corner.

Figure 45. Does this look more like a pancake collapse, a volcano, or a dust fountain "bubbler"?

Figure 48. The black building in the foreground is the Bankers Trust Building (130 Liberty Street), which has a total volume of approximately 28% of the total volume of one WTC tower. So two WTC towers had seven times the volume of the Bankers Trust Building. How could seven collapsed Bankers Trust buildings leave so little debris? (182.5ft x 182.5ft x 40floors) vs. 2x(207ft x 207ft x 110floors)

2 Comments:

Skyscrapers MUST hold themselves up. They must also sway in the wind. The people who design skyscrapers MUST figure out how much steel and how much concrete they are going to put on every level before they even dig the hole for the foundation.

After EIGHT YEARS why don’t we have a table specifying the TONS of STEEL and TONS of CONCRETE that were on every level of WTCs 1&2? The NIST report does not even specify the TOTAL for the concrete. The total for the steel is in three places. So even if the planes did it that 10,000 page report is CRAP!

Conspiracies are irrelevant. The Truth Movement should be marching on all of the engineering schools in the country.

Watch that Purdue simulation. If a 150 ton airliner crashes near the top of a skyscraper at 440 mph isn’t the building going to sway? Didn’t the survivors report the building “moving like a wave”? So why do the core columns in the Purdue video remain perfectly still as the plane comes in?

That is the trouble with computer simulations. If they are good, they are very good. But if they have a defect either accidental or deliberate they can be REALLY STUPID once you figure out the flaws.

The distributions of steel and concrete are going to affect the sway of a skyscraper whether it is from the wind or an airliner.

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How much does one complete floor assembly weigh?

You know those square donut floor slabs? They were 205 ft square with a rectangular hole for the core. There was a steel rebar mesh embedded in the concrete which was poured onto corrugated steel pans which were supported by 35 and 60 foot trusses. There has been talk about those things pancaking on each other for years.

But has anyone ever said what the whole thing weighed? Why haven't we seen that A LOT in EIGHT YEARS? The concrete alone is easy to compute, about 601 tons. But the concrete could not be separated from the entire assembly, the upper knuckles of the trusses were embedded into the concrete. So what did the whole thing weigh and why haven't the EXPERTS been mentioning that A LOT in EIGHT YEARS?

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So why hasn't Richard Gage and his buddies produced a table with the TONS of STEEL and TONS of CONCRETE that were on every level of the WTC? How much computing power do they have now, compared to the early 1960s when the buildings were designed? I asked Gage about that in May of 2008 at Chicago Circle Campus and he got a surprised look on his face and gave me this LAME excuse about the NIST not releasing accurate blueprints. Gravity hasn't changed since the 1960s. They should be able to come up with some reasonable numbers.

In today's world, the goals of a committed anarchist should be to defend some state institutions from the attack against them, while trying at the same time to pry them open to more meaningful public participation— and ultimately, to dismantle them in a much more free society, if the appropriate circumstances can be achieved.Noam Chomsky